Knoxville Dream Center began ‘under the bridge’ but has spread help throughout Knoxville
Every Tuesday at about 4 pm, Becky Wells arrives at Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church ready to work. Already there are other diehard volunteers and the people they’re there to help, greeting friends and catching up on the news. They’re all awaiting the arrival of a refrigerated truck from the Knoxville Dream Center, one that weekly distributes fresh produce, meat and other groceries to those who need it.
Beaver Creek, located in Powell off Clinton Highway, has been working with the Dream Center on its food truck program for two years. Wells, who oversees the church’s Mission and Outreach Committee, was a little negative about it when Tommy Halcomb, a church member and teams coordinator at the Dream Center, originally proposed getting involved. “I didn’t know how it would work. Would there be any people to give it out to?” she recalls thinking. But once she got started, she’s had no regrets. “There’s no denying there’s a need in the area. It’s been a great thing, for the people and for the church.”
Beaver Creek is one of eight local churches that work with the Dream Center to distribute food that otherwise local grocery stores would pitch into dumpsters. The food comes through Second Harvest Food Bank’s Food Rescue Program. (During the school year another location is added near the University of Tennessee campus to help students who need it.) Most of the items are perishables: produce, meat, bread and other baked goods.
The Dream Center has been sending out food into the community since 2013. But its roots go back much further than that.
Under the Bridge and Beyond
The Knoxville Dream Center, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, grew out of a longtime ministry to the homeless called Lost Sheep Ministry. It began in the early 1990s under an overpass in downtown Knoxville. Maxine Raines was the product of homelessness herself, and she wanted
to give back, so she started distributing hot dogs from her car and sharing her faith every Wednesday evening under the bridge.
It wasn’t long before the ministry was feeding hun- dreds and members of the community were pitching in to help. Among those earliest of volunteers was Paul Harris, the pastor overseeing benevolence programs at Park West Church of God. By 2013, Lost Sheep had acquired warehouse space overlooking I-640, and the expense and management was becoming too much for Raines. Harris, now executive pastor at Park West, took over directing and expanding the programming, creating the Knoxville Dream Center modeled after a similar though larger nonprofit in Los Angeles. Though the Dream Center is
its own entity, about half of its funding comes from Park West, says operations director Ross Jones.
“Park West would say we’re their local missions program, but we want other churches to feel like they can be a part of it. It’s for the whole community.”
“At Park West we wanted to invest heavily into serving our city,” Harris says. “My heart was wanting to do more than help the homeless. I started taking food and at first
I went door to door giving it away. We discovered the suffering silent, like Miss Cathy, sitting on her couch with a walker beside her. We realized there are people we’ll never know because they’ll never come under the bridge. And that’s how the food trucks got started.”
“The concept is simple: Get food. Go somewhere. Give it away.” Harris says. “Give churches a tool to help people and form relationships. The value is consistency.”
Today the Dream Center touches lots of people through- out East Tennessee who need help. It still feeds people under the bridge on Wednesdays, and provides medical and dental services as well. Its food trucks head out four days a week. The Fresh Start Clothing Store opens every Thursday to provide clothes at thrift store prices or for free to people needing to apply for or start a job.
The Dream Center also offers lots of help to Knox County teachers and students, especially those at
Title One schools. It provides meals for parent-teacher programs after school and works with school social workers to provide necessities to families in need. It also provides school supplies and goodies like gourmet coffee to teachers at Title One schools. And Christmastime festivities include reading The Polar Express, complete with hot cocoa and faux snow, as an incentive program for the schools’ top readers.
Adam Fritts, director of Community Schools for the United Way of Greater Knoxville, praises the Dream Center’s work with the schools. “They want to do things that support kids and teachers and families — provide the day-to-day essentials they need — and they do so from a space of wanting to share their own resources. I couldn’t say nicer things about the Dream Center.”
Nehemiah Project
On Labor Day, while most of us were grilling hot dogs or mourning the end of summer, Joe Gardner was at Lowe’s, selecting wood for a wheelchair ramp he would build that week in New Market. Gardner has been the face and the hands of the Nehemiah Project for four years.
A retired engineer, he learned his home repair skills while helping more skilled volunteers at Park West Church. When the Dream Center took over that ministry, Gardner was ready to lead it.
Five days a week, Gardner is a willing volunteer, help- ing area widows with leaky faucets and toilets that won’t stop running, building wheelchair ramps, repairing dry- wall, replacing light fixtures, laying flooring and handling other household repairs. He also maintains the property at Park West Church and Dutch Valley Church of God.
“The Bible tells us to care for our widows, and the very first widow we helped was Maxine Raines,” Paul Harris says. “We helped fix up her house.” (Maxine passed away in 2020.)
“In the four years the Dream Center has had the project, we’ve had 430 requests for help,” Gardner says, “and we’ve been able to take care of about 90 percent of
them. Some situations involving structural damage we can’t take on. And I do have plumbers and roofers I can call on when I need help.
“Before I started doing this I did not know I had a passion for it,” he says. “But I found a huge need, and I found out I had an aptitude for it, and I really enjoy it. Not to say it isn’t overwhelming sometimes.
“One of the widows I’ve helped called this morning when I was on my way in,” he says. “She said the Word of God had been given to her for several people, and I was one of them. She told me I am where I need to be and doing what I should be doing, and if I continue I will be greatly blessed. That’s difficult to ignore.”
A Farm and the Future
About a year ago, the Dream Center acquired access to part of a privately owned farm in West Knox County. Since then, it has taken on farming as part of its mission.
“We’re raising cattle; we have about 30 head at the moment,” Jones says. “No crops yet. We’re processing beef for the benefit of the ministry.” The beef has been used primarily for the after-school meals at Title One schools and for the under the bridge outreach, he says.
The vision for the future of the farm involves two aspects. First, it’s another source of food the Dream Center can use in its various feeding programs. And second, it has potential for housing or training.
“Because of the land that’s available to us, we have a chance to start other ministries — maybe a recovery program or temporary housing for people who need it or maybe a training center for ministers. No decisions have been made about that yet, but the future is bright,” Jones says.